Method and system for performing a configuration of an automation system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10437215-B2
Application number	US-201415513621-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 25, 2014
Priority date	Sep 25, 2014
Publication date	Oct 8, 2019
Grant date	Oct 8, 2019

Abstract

A configuration system and method adapted to perform a configuration or reconfiguration of applications run by an automation system, the configuration system including a processing unit adapted to process at least one natural language statement of a user requirement input by a user concerning a control and/or monitoring functionality of the automation system based on a user ontology of the user and/or an automation system ontology of the automation system to generate a formal requirements specification, and a matching unit adapted to match the generated formal requirements specification and formal component specifications read from a component library to derive a configuration deployment including one or several suitable components with configurations fulfilling the input user requirement.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for performing a configuration or reconfiguration of applications of an automation system, the method comprising:
(a) processing at least one natural language statement of a user requirement input by a user concerning a control and/or monitoring functionality of the automation system, based on a user ontology of the user and an automation system ontology of the automation system, to generate a formal requirements specification;
(b) matching the generated formal requirements specification and a formal component specification read from a component library to derive a configuration deployment comprising one or more suitable components with configurations fulfilling an input user requirement; and
(c) configuring or reconfiguring the applications of the automation system using the derived configuration deployment;
wherein the user ontology comprises a user vocabulary used by the user for formulating a natural language statement,
wherein the automation system ontology comprises a system vocabulary describing at least one of elements of the automation system and relations between elements of the automation system;
wherein the method further comprises automatically aligning the user vocabulary and system vocabulary.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one natural language statement is input by the user via a user interface in written or spoken language.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the component library comprises a plurality of software components each having metadata describing a functionality and/or constraints of a respective software component.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the generated formal requirements specification comprises a SPARQL query or a statement formalized using an OWL ontology.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the derived configuration deployment comprises software component read from the component library and/or at least one generated executable software component fulfilling the input user requirement.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the processing of the natural language statement input by the user comprises:
splitting the natural language statement into syntactic markers and tokens;
matching the peprassed tokens with entries in the user ontology of the user and with entries in the automation system ontology of the automation system to extract information of automation system entities mentioned in the natural language statement; and
generating the formal requirements specification using the extracted information of the mentioned automation system entities.

7. The method according to claim 6 , wherein if no entry for a token is found in the user ontology and/or in the automation system ontology, the respective token is checked against entries in a lexicon stored in a database.

8. The method according to claim 7 , wherein if no entry for the respective token is found in the lexicon, possible synonyms of the token are derived and checked against entries in the lexicon.

9. The method according to claim 7 , wherein after identification of the token or a synonym of the token in the lexicon, a corresponding formal rule is extracted and merged in a SPARQL query body with the information extracted from the user ontology and/or the automation system ontology to generate the formal requirements specification.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the configured or reconfigured monitoring and/or control applications are visualized to the user via the user interface.

11. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the user is identified on the basis of the input natural language statement of the user and a corresponding user ontology is loaded from a database.

12. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one component of the configuration deployment calculates key performance indicators of the automation system and/or retrieves data from automation entities of the automation system and/or supplies data to automation entities of the automation system.

13. A configuration system configured to perform a configuration or reconfiguration of applications run by an automation system, the configuration system comprising:
(a) a processing unit configured to process at least one natural language statement of a user requirement input by a user concerning a control and/or monitoring functionality of the automation system based on a user ontology of the user and/or an automation system ontology of the automation system to generate a formal requirements specification;
(b) a matching unit configured to match the generated formal requirements specification and formal component specifications read from a component library to derive a configuration deployment comprising one or more suitable components with configurations fulfilling an input user requirement; and
(c) a model manager;
wherein the user ontology comprises a user vocabulary used by the user for formulating a natural language statement,
wherein the automation system ontology comprises a system vocabulary describing at least one of elements of the automation system and relations between elements of the automation system,
wherein the model manager is adapted to automatically align the user vocabulary and system vocabulary, and
wherein the configuration system configures or reconfigures the applications run by the automation system using the derived configuration deployment.

14. An automation system comprising a plurality of automation entities and a configuration system according to claim 13 , wherein the at least one component of the derived configuration deployment is configured to calculate key performance indicators of the automation system and/or to retrieve data from automation entities of the automation system and/or to supply data to automation entities of the automation system.

15. A configuration tool for an automation system, the configuration tool configured to
process at least one natural language statement of a user requirement input by a user concerning a control and/or monitoring functionality of the automation system, based on a user ontology of the user and an automation system ontology of the automation system, to generate a formal requirements specification;
wherein the user ontology comprises a user vocabulary used by the user for formulating a natural language statement,
wherein the automation system ontology comprises a system vocabulary describing at least one of elements of the automation system and relations between elements of the automation system;

align the user vocabulary and system vocabulary automatically;
match the generated formal requirements specification and a formal component specification read from a component library to derive a configuration deployment comprising one or more suitable components with configurations fulfilling an input user requirement; and
configure the automation system using the derived configuration deployment.

Assignees

• Siemens Ag

Inventors

• Hubauer Thomas
• Lamparter Steffen
• Roshchin Mikhail
• Waltinger Ulli

Classifications

• G06F16/24522

  Translation of natural language queries to structured queries · CPC title

• G05B2219/13023

  Convert natural language, graphic to coded states, input · CPC title

• G06F16/367

  Ontology · CPC title

• G05B19/042 Primary

  using digital processors (G05B19/05 takes precedence) · CPC title